Slowly, I sat up, cracking my neck as I did. I'd barely gotten any sleep the night before, and ended up stretching some of my muscles to the point that they hurt. And I didn't even get that well rested, so it wasn't even worth it. Maybe I should've done some studying. But for now, I should just get ready. Suddenly, the monitors turned on.

"Um... hi everyone... it's Araigu. I- I just wanted to say, that it's now 7 AM, so Nighttime is over. Have a g- good day!"

I paused, waiting for the announcement to stop. So, that's how we'll learn what time it is. I put on my glasses, taking a moment to readjust them. I walked into the closet, putting on the identical clothes that hung in there. Afterwards, I put on my shoes, tying the laces together. Finally, I had finished, so I sat down at my desk, taking out my fountain pen. I admired it for a moment, before pulling out a notebook. I opened it to the first page, ready to right something down.

Suddenly, a knock at my door distracted me. I sighed, getting up from the desk and leaving everything on top of it. I approached the door, being very cautious as I opened it, leaving the small chain lock on it. I slightly stuck my head over to the crack, being careful to be out of the range of any knives that may come plunging directly at me.

"H- hey Hirano..." Furuya said. I paused, looking her up and down. No weapons. At least none that were visible.

"U- um, hey Furuya. W- why are you here?" I asked. She paused for a moment.

"Um, s- so someone fucking told m- me to bring you t- to the kitchen area." She said, not noticing the swear word that had left her mouth.

"S- so you want me to follow you?" I asked. She nodded.

"Yeah, at your earliest c- convenience." She replied. I sighed, taking off the lock on the door.

"It's a- alright, I can go n- now..." I said. She smiled.

"Thank you!" She replied. I smiled in return, and followed her over to the kitchen, making sure to clothes the door behind me. Finally, we walked into the dining area. Everyone was there, except for two people. Taguchi, the Hustler, and Yamazaki, the Photographer.

"Hey Hirano!" Kawata said, smiling as he walked over. "You okay? You don't look like you slept at all last night. I nodded.

"Y- yeah, I'm fine." I responded. He nodded, walking over to the table and pulling out a chair, letting me sit down it, before pushing it towards the table. He repeated this process for Furuya.

"Um... s- so, why did you call us all here?" Shishido asked. Kawata nodded to himself, before walking to the end of the table and standing at the front of it.

"Alright! So we're going to be talking about different strategies for protecting everyone, and then we're going to investigate this place to figure out how to get out of here." He explained. Everyone nodded to each other.

"But shouldn't we split up into groups? For protection? We don't know who's gonna murder at what time." Miyazaki said, tapping her hand on the table, with her other arm folded.

"That's a good idea! Here, I'll split us all into groups of three by random." He said. He looked at me. "So, we'll have Hirano go with..." he looked around the room. "Furuya, since you were the one who brought her here... and..." he examined the room.

"OOH OOH ME!!!" Sugai said, nearly jumping in his seat with his hand in the air. Kawata laughed, and nodded.

"Sure, you can do that." He replied. Sugai cheered to himself.

"Heh heh heh... perfect..." he whispered. Suddenly, he started to chuckled, before it slowly turned into a maniacal laugh. I made eye contact with Kajiwara.

"You better keep track of him." He said. I slightly nodded, kind of confused. Kawata separated everyone else into groups, with each of them wandering away to go explore.

"Heh heh heh... are you guys ready?" Sugai maniacally said, as if he was plotting something.

"U- um... I think so." Furuya said. "What about you H- Hirano?" She asked. I nodded, and she smiled.

"YES!!! LET'S GO!!!" The chaotic ball of energy yelled, before running out of the room. We looked to each other, before speedily running out after him. "Alright, where to first?" He asked.

"Well, I guess we could explore the kitchen, s- since it's the closest." I said. He nodded, racing inside. The doors swung back and forth, taking a couple of long seconds for it to finally stop. I wandered in after him, making sure the door wouldn't hit Furuya in the face.

"Man, this place is kind of boring." He said. Suddenly, a light bulb went off in his head. He got up onto the counters, and pulled open the cabinet. "Bingo!"

"What did you f- find?" Furuya asked. He chuckled maniacally.

"Flour~" he said, pointing to the contents of the cabinet. Which, of course, housed a couple thousand pounds of flour.

"That could crush s- someone to death..." I whispered, fearfully fidgeting.

"Huh? What'd you say?" Furuya replied. I froze up.

"Nothing!" I yelled. Sugai laughed to himself, before closing the cabinet.

"There are some k- kitchen knives over here. We should probably g- get rid of them..." Furuya said.

"Hey! You can't do that!" Ressa yelled, popping up out of nowhere. I screamed, falling down onto the ground. "Woah! That was loud..." he said, covering his ears.

"W- why isn't it allowed?" Furuya asked.

"Huh? Repeat that, I was covering my ears." He responded.

"W- why the fuck isn't it allowed?" She asked calmly. With that kind of language, you'd expect her to be loud and angry. But it was more of a timid tone. "Shit! I'm sorry for that!"

"It's whatever. Teenagers are so strange these days..." Ressa said. "Anyway, it's not allowed because you can't have a killing game without any weapons! Weapons are the life blood of this trip!"

"But it doesn't say that in the rules." Sugai said, jumping down from the counter. Ressa stood there, frozen, and not even saying a word.

"Sugar honey iced tea, now I've gotta make a new rule for that! And it's only been a day!" He complained. "Whatever. I'll make Araigu do an announcement for that later. But the rules have changed, got it? No destroying the weapons!"

"What if you're the murderer, and you're trying to destroy your weapon? Does that count?" Sugai asked, glaring at Ressa. He stared for a moment.

"I guess... the blackened can dispose of their own weapons after the murder... UGH!!! Stop looking for loop holes!" He yelled, before disappearing.

"W- why did you do that!? N- now the murders can dispose of the w- weapons!" I yelled. Sugai chuckled to himself.

"Yeah, but where would they be able to destroy their own weapons? And plus, it's funny to mess with the red panda." He said, chuckling to himself. "Anyway, I guess the murder weapons are off limits to touch. Well, unless you really want to murder someone. But that would NEVER happen, riiiiiiiiiiiiiiight?" He asked.

No, that wasn't right. The reality of this situation is the fact that anyone can kill someone else. No matter what happens, even if someone says that they'd never do it, there's always going to be someone tempted into a kill. That's the whole reason this killing game exists. Because we will kill, even if people say that they won't. We're meant to distrust each other.

"Hey, you guys, w- what's this?" Furuya said. She had the freezer open, looking at the contents.

"Um, it's the freezer? You lookin for popsicles or something?" Sugai said. Then, his eyes lit up. "Wait, POPSICLES!?" He yelled, jumping over to the fridge.

"No, th- they're not popsicles." She replied. She pulled four things that looked like cups, but more gelatinous.

"What are they? They look like some kind of slime formation." He said.

"They're m- molds..." I said. The two looked at me, before looking back at them.

"Ah, I see. They're icicle molds." She said. Sugai stared, entirely confused.

"Um, so, what does that mean? Does it mean that I can make popsicles?" He asked.

"No, it's another murder weapon. I've actually seen this kind of thing in a book. It's a murder mystery novel called 'Tempting the Frost'. It's about a girl and her friends who gets trapped in a cabin over the next week because of a snow storm, and one of their friends was murdered. The book is expertly crafted, so when the killer is revealed to the reader, but makes sense when you reread the book. The murder is my favorite character, and that's because they're-"

"SPOILER ALERT!!!" Sugai yelled, running around the kitchen making a siren noise. Furuya's face turned a bright pink.

"A- ah, I'm sorry. I guess I l- lost myself there, and almost ruined it f- for you guys..." she said.

"Nah, it's alright. Honestly, I've never really been into books, but the way you described it, I'd actually want to read it. Even if I can't read!" He laughed.

"Y- YOU CAN'T READ!?" I yelled. He chuckled to himself.

"Nah, that's just an adolescent joke." He said, a huge grin spread across his face. Furuya laughed, smiling her way as she walked out of the kitchen.

"Um, so you were being serious about the reading that book thing, right?" I asked. He shook his head.

"No, I can't read chapter books. I lose interest waaaaaaay to quickly. Maybe an audio book or something, but never on my own." He said. "But hey, she seemed happy about it. That's probably all that matters." He said, skipping out of the room. I paused, looking back at the kitchen. It was nice that they were getting along... but I couldn't shake the feeling there was something important in here... "HEY HIRANO!!! STOP BEING SUCH A SLOW POKE AND GET OUT HERE!!! WE GOTTA EXPLORE!!!" I looked back to the room. I considered staying, but I had to keep myself in a group, or I might die.

I raced out of the room, joining Sugai and Furuya in the hallway. Sugai continued to jump down the hallway, as I and Furuya stood side by side. I couldn't help but have this feeling of uneasiness.

"Um, are you okay? Y- you seem really scared." She said. I stared at the ground. I didn't want to admit it, but I was horrified. Every movement could be potentially fatal. "You don't have to s- say anything though, I mean, I- I'm probably more of a coward th- than you are." It didn't exactly make me feel better, since she indirectly insulted me, but it was more of a self burn than one on me.

"W- what do you mean?" I asked. She took a long sigh.

"W- well, I have a fear of spiders, being upside down, and small spaces. I- I don't even know how someone could have three separate phobias, b- but I do. It's kind of s- sad." She said. I smiled a bit.

"I can understand most of those. But what about being upside down? Why is that?" I asked. She nervously laughed, as Sugai paused, and slowed down his pace, letting us catch up with him.

"Um, w- whenever I'm upside down I get really s- sick, and I end up throwing up. Like o- one time, I was on an upside-down r- roller coaster, and ended up spewing my guts out everywhere." She said. I doubt she means her actual guts, but that's kind of sad.

"Oh, that really sucks." I said. She nodded.

"One time, I threw up b- blood because of it. I- I don't know how it h- happened, but it was absolutely fucking disgusting." She replied. I nodded.

"You guys are talking about fears, right?" Sugai said. We nodded.

"Well, if you think having three fears is degrading, imagine having a fear of butterflies!" He laughed. We looked to each other, and then back to him, as he raced into another room on the opposite side of the kitchen.

We wandered inside, seeing Sugai frozen in place. He seemed to be shaking a bit, staring at the room. A sudden dread filled me, as I looked at the way he was reacting to walking into the room. Did it happen already? Did... did someone...

"W- what's wrong!?" Furuya said. Sugai slowly turned around, pure dread plastered on his face. He stared for a moment, before he spoke.

"This room is really boring." He said, completely unimpressed.

"Why would you do that!? I thought something went wrong!" I yelled. He chuckled to himself.

"I mean, I got you guys, right? You thought there was a dead body or something, right?" He asked, chuckling to himself, before turning on the light to illuminate the dark room. "It's just a boring old office. Nothing that deserves praise or something like that. It barely has any furniture anyway!" He yelled, angrily walking into the room, going to the chair behind the desk, and spun around in it, acting like an villain, pretending to pet nothing in his lap.

"Sugai, I understand that your basically just a child, but that's not okay to do." Furuya said, glaring at him. He continued to chuckle, as he spun around in the chair. I ignored the two of them for a moment, walking over to the closet. I slowly opened it, looking inside.

"Hmmm...." I mumbled to myself, looking at the jackets inside. They were held up by hangars. I stared for a moment, before pushing them out of the way. Near the bottom, was a large stack of boxes. I slowly reach out of them, almost scared. Why was I scared? Did I have a reason?

"HIRANO!!!" Sugai yelled, racing over and jumping onto my back, making me lose my balance and falling backwards. I screamed, grabbing one of the jackets as I fell backwards, the hangar following the fall and bringing the metal pipe down with it. Sugai fell off of my back, and rolled away from me. I felt tears enter my eyes, as I slowly started to cry again.

"H- hey! It's gonna be okay! Don't cry!" Furuya said, coming to my aid. I just sat, and let the tears fall down my face. "You need to apologize!" She yelled. Sugai stood up, staring for a moment. Almost immediately, I noticed he was holding his wrist in his hand, and staring at the two of us. His finger was swollen, and turned a purple color.

"Yeah. I guess. Sorry." He said, reaching a hand out to me, letting the broken finger rest at his side. I hadn't even realized I had stopped crying.

"Are you okay!? W- what happened to your hand!?" I asked. He looked at his finger, before shrugging his shoulders.

"It broke I think?" He said. I stood up.

"W- we gotta help you! That could seriously mess you up if something happened!" I replied. He stared at me for a second.

"It's fine. I'll be okay-"

"NO!!! We're gonna go back to the dinging room, and take care of the wound, okay?" I said. He stared for another moment.

"Okay."

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